‘Children home girls drugged before rape’

PATNA: The minor girls living at the government-run ‘children home’ on Sahu Road in Muzaffarpur were being allegedly drugged regularly before being raped.
Quoting the rape survivors, a police officer said on Wednesday they were given two tablets after their dinner. “They told police one tablet was white and the other was pink,” the officer said, adding the victims would fall asleep after taking the medicines.
“Many of them told police they used to find themselves unclothed the next morning and feel pain in lower abdomen. Their complaints regarding this to the NGO — Seva Sankalp ewam Vikas Samiti , which had been running the children home for the government for over four years — fell on deaf ears,” the police officer said, preferring anonymity.
Sources said NGO proprietor Brajesh Thakur and its seven women employees were arrested on June 3 after an FIR was lodged in the Women’s police station in Muzaffarpur on May 31 following a Tata Institute of Social Sciences-Mumbai’s audit report about the abuse of the inmates. On June 5, children welfare committee member Vineet Kumar Verma was also arrested.

The sources also said some of the girls lost mental balance after they came to the ‘children home’. “It is yet not clear if the drugging or violence led to the loss of their mental balance,” the police officer said.
The survivors also told police they were forced to dance by Brajesh and others to the accompaniment of obscene songs at the ‘children home’. “They said Brajesh had connections with politicians and officials in the state,” the officer said, adding Brajesh’s financial transactions and call details records were being analysed.